It’s common opinion that The Simpsons Movie wasn’t exactly electrifying - just an ‘OK’ 90 minutes (with one of the most baffling scenes in movie history - the one where Bart is skateboarding naked). Still, it made a load of money, and so a sequel was expected. Thing was, it never materialised - it’s been eleven years since the original, and in Hollywood follow-up terms, that’s quite a long time.
Well, it turns out that one is in the pre-production stages. You see, Disney is currently in the process of buying Fox, who air The Simpsons, and amidst the situation, The New Yorkeruncovered some interesting info from the animation department:
“Amid the uncertainty, Ms. Snider has emphasized a revamp of Fox’s approach to animation, bringing in a new partner to replace an expired deal with DreamWorks Animation after it was acquired by Comcast Corp.
“The film studio is partnering with the Fox television studio on a big-screen adaptation of the animated series Bob’s Burgers, a second Simpsons movie in development and a Family Guy film that would mix animation with live action, said people with knowledge of the projects.”
Simpsons showrunner Al Jean teased the project to Entertainment Weekly last year:
“I’d say [it’s in] the very earliest stages. I certainly am cautious about a couple things. I wouldn’t want it to be risky in terms of budget, and I would not want it to be anything that we did purely for the money. I would want it to be a really great movie. I personally feel no need for another one unless it’s great.”
It’s unclear how this will all pan out though - Disney are staunchly family-friendly, so how they’ll handle some of the riskier properties like Family Guy will be interesting. Still (apart from that scene), The Simpsons is relatively vanilla, so there shouldn’t be too much that needs changing, there - apart from maybe making it funny again.
Supposedly Disney plans to finish all Fox films that are currently in production or post-production, but we don’t know how far they got on either of the three animated movies mentioned above, so their future is not set in stone. Time will tell.
(Images: Fox)
